Monthly Archives: December 2008

As a special guest to the biannual President’s Club meeting, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas discusses his remarkable life story, including his grandfather’s impact, which serves as the inspiration for his Thomas’ new best-selling book, “My Grandfather’s Son.”

“You forget who you are—black or white and American or African—and where you come from when you are before God circling the Kabba (the large masonry cubic structure near Mecca) in a two-piece unstitched garment.” These words are from sitting United States Congressman Keith Ellison. This fellow who has a time when he ‘forgets’ he is an American is America’s ‘unofficial goodwill Ambassador’ to the Middle East. Americans held hostage by terrorists, in POW camps and under enemy fire can never forget they are an American fighting man or civilian. But from journalists to politicians of the Left we have people with American citizenship who claim to either be against what we fight for to protect innocent citizens of our country or claim to be ‘neutral.’ Only during the Vietnam War did America begin to tolerate neutrality in time of war. Thank you Uncle Walter Cronkite for that insight. But now it has become an almost accepted ‘truth’ of our country today. It is hogwash and strikes at the very moral fiber of our nation.

Politicians leak intelligence given in closed classified briefings and give it their own spin to undermine our elected leaders and our warriors in harm’s way. But even worse we have a generation of officers in the military and bluenose operatives in government who leak seemingly at will. This they take as their ‘democratic’ right. One has to question if some of these folks took their oath of office with their fingers childishly crossed behind their collective backs. The John Kerry/Daniel Ellsberg type of military officer/government employee are sadly alive and well and are once again multiplying as the leftist press of the media in all forms continues to multiply like a great cancerous growth on the body politic. As long as we excuse treason as just another political slant our enemies will plan to prolong any engagement until we quit like a poodle in a fight with a German Shepherd. Lots of whining and yelping but not much biting by the pussy pups of this genre. We are the Dobermans of war and fear of even a rabid Poodle is heresy in keeping with our sacrificing forebears.

EXIT Strategy’ equals quitting my fellow citizens.

I am not today nor will I ever be a ‘citizen of the world’ because I am an American, first, last and always.

I do not go back to nations I have fought to apologize to them but simply to smirk in their wretched little faces over how many of their sorry, mentally captured brethren I slew in battle.

I am an Infantry Soldier and my very pride is built on the broken bodies of my enemies.

I am not a purveyor of political ideals but simply a life taker and will breaker because bringing political change is somebody else’s job and not mine.

I am proud of old soldiers when they gather to reminisce. You do not hear a lot of whining as they mingle, even from those who left parts of themselves broken on a foreign shore. They do talk of what might have been if some politically motivated clown act had not snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. But they do so in eternal anger and not in whining discussion groups led by those who were never there. But I do hear a recurring theme which says with great sadness ‘Who are we and what have we become’?

It is rather simple really. We have become a ‘pussified ‘group of self-thinking, propagandized whiners who believe that nothing is worth the long-haul to pursue. ‘Exit Strategy’ has become the catch-word for a nation no longer yearning for or even seeing the importance of the simple but irreplaceable word VICTORY. So when you mouth the phrase ‘Peace on earth, goodwill towards men’ this Christmas, may we remember the price paid on a cruel cross to try and achieve it.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND GOD BLESS AMERICA AND HER BRAVE.

Black Lions Sir,
De Oppresso Libre,
Rangers Lead The Way
and
Currahee!

KHOST PROVINCE, Afghanistan Capt. Roger Hill stood behind a long wooden desk, reading from a piece of paper that trembled lightly in his hand. “Please know that seeing your brothers whittled down one by one by a cowardly and ghost-like enemy is difficult,” he said, glancing up only briefly at the team of military prosecutors assembled around him.

Hill is a U.S. Army officer in Afghanistan accused of detainee abuse, including a mock execution, war crimes, dereliction of duty and other serious charges stemming from an incident last August at a U.S. military base outside the capital city of Kabul. Members of his unit allegedly slapped Afghan detainees, and Hill himself is said to have fired his pistol into the ground near blindfolded Afghans to frighten them.

But after exploring the personalities and circumstances involved in this case, it’s hard for me to condemn Hill or his first sergeant, Tommy Scott, who has been charged with assaulting the detainees. Stuck in the deadly middle ground between all-out war and nation- building, these men lashed out to protect themselves. To me, their story encapsulates the impossible role we’ve asked U.S. soldiers to play in the reconstruction of this devastated country. They are part warrior, part general contractor, yet they are surrounded on all sides by a populace that wants nothing more than to kill or be rid of them.

The soldiers who have served at Hill’s side call him heroic. Others describe the career that the 30-year-old West Point graduate might have had if he and his men hadn’t apparently crossed the line one day last summer. Instead, I watched Hill fight for that career — and for his freedom — earlier this month in a conference room at Forward Operating Base Salerno, a large U.S. military base near the Afghan town of Khost, about 17 miles from the Afghan-Pakistani border.

As Hill tried to defend his actions at a military hearing, his soft voice filled the small, bare room: “Know that sifting through the charred and crumbling remains of fellow service members in order to identify their bodies, or picking up the pieces of another after this ghost-like enemy has hacked off his arms and cut out his heart . . . only for you to later find out that his fingers are being distributed downtown amongst the locals, can somehow make a commander more protective. ”

It was against this “ghost-like enemy” that Hill, Scott and the rest of their unit were fighting at Forward Operating Base Airborne in Wardak Province, west of Kabul, where Hill’s company was the sole coalition force for miles around.

There are dozens of bases throughout the country like Airborne. They are full of soldiers who bear the dual and confounding burden of being both an army fighting the Taliban, with all the killing and dying that entails, and a corps of civil servants. They attend shuras (meetings with village leaders), construct roads and help train the Afghan police force. They are expected to work hand-in-glove with people who might have tea with them one moment and inform Taliban killers about U.S. troop movements the next. But talking with local leaders — even leaders who might be playing both sides — is the only way to begin progress toward building institutions in Afghanistan.

I traveled here to work as an embedded reporter with the soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., about an hour from my home in Nashville. I’d planned on spending most of my time with the 101st as they engaged the Taliban on the Pakistan border.

But while waiting at FOB Salerno for a helicopter ride to a smaller base, I heard talk about Hill and the Article 32 inquiry he was about to face — the military justice version of a grand jury hearing. I learned that Hill and Scott could face life in prison if the matter proceeded to a court martial. Another half-dozen members of Hill’s company will soon have Article 32 hearings of their own. One soldier is already being held in a military jail in Kuwait for his role in the incident.

I decided to stay.

Hill’s path to the hearing room in Khost began, according to witness testimony, when he received reliable intelligence late last August that Taliban agents were working on his unit’s base, which is manned by no more than 200 coalition soldiers. One of these reported interlopers, a man identified only as “Noori,” was Hill’s personal interpreter. Two more purported Taliban informants were running the base’s small, locally owned coffee shop. The intelligence said that all three, as well as some others, were relaying information about U.S. troop movements and artillery positions to Taliban agents in Wardak, an area the size of Connecticut where Hill’s small company faced off against a large number of hostile locals.

The intelligence report detailing how these Afghan men were working with the Taliban is classified “top secret.” But an Army spokesman who has seen it said that the evidence against them was incontrovertible. “There was a legitimate report saying that [Hill’s translator] was a bad guy and was sharing information with the Taliban,” said Marine Capt. Scott Miller, media liaison for the hearing. “He was providing information to recognized bad people.”

IN THE BOOK, The Sociopath Next Door, Martha Stout says something really interesting. Her book is about normal, everyday sociopaths (also known by the somewhat outdated term, “psychopath”). In other words, the book is not about serial killers, but about the neighbor who drives you crazy, the spouse who seems dedicated to making your life miserable, the cruel, unfeeling boss, etc.

A sociopath is someone who feels no empathy for other human beings. The consequences of this lack are enormous. These people are, in many ways, not recognizably human. And there is no cure for sociopathy. It is not caused by upbringing. Therapy only makes them worse.

About two percent of the population is sociopathic, and those who are in a relationship with a sociopath need to understand what makes sociopaths tick. The more you know, the less likely you are to be fooled, used, or destroyed by a sociopath.

But Martha Stout said something interesting for us here in our conversation about Islam. She wrote about the techniques sociopaths use to exploit people around them. Sociopaths use people. And there is one thing sociopaths use more than anything else because it works so well with normal people. Their ultra-effective weapon is to evoke pity.

Stout wrote:

The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed, as one might imagine, at our fearfulness. It is, perversely, an appeal to our sympathy.

I first learned this when I was still a graduate student in psychology and had the opportunity to interview a court-referred patient the system had already identified as a “psychopath.” He was not violent, preferring instead to swindle people out of their money with elaborate investment scams. Intrigued by this individual and what could possibly motivate him…I asked, “What is important to you in your life? What do you want more than anything else?” I thought he might say “getting money,” or “staying out of jail,” which were the activities to which he devoted most of his time. Instead, without a moment’s hesitation, he replied, “Oh, that’s easy. What I like better than anything else is when people feel sorry for me. The thing I really want more than anything else out of life is people’s pity.”

I was astonished, and more than a little put off. I think I would have liked him better if he had said “staying out of jail,” or even “getting money.” Also, I was mystified. Why would this man — why would anyone — wish to be pitied, let alone wish to be pitied above all other ambitions? I could not imagine. But now, after twenty-five years of listening to victims, I realize there is an excellent reason for the sociopathic fondness for pity. As obvious as the nose on one’s face, and just as difficult to see without the help of a mirror, the explanation is that good people will let pathetic individuals get by with murder, so to speak, and therefore any sociopath wishing to continue with his game, whatever it happens to be, should play repeatedly for none other than pity.

More than admiration — more even than fear — pity from good people is carte blanche. When we pity, we are, at least for the moment, defenseless, and like so many of the other positive human characteristics that bind us together in groups…our emotional vulnerability when we pity is used against us…

The reason I thought that was interesting and relevant is that pity is one of the most common techniques Islamic supremacists use, and it is the main reason they’ve been able to get away with as much as they have so far. They exploit the egalitarian, multiculturalist, good-hearted nature of non-Muslims. They evoke pity and then use our own kindness and our desire to “get along with others” against us.

I was just reading the book, Tripoli: The United States’ First War on Terror. The ruler of Tripoli had been seizing U.S. merchant ships, adding the ship to his own fleet, keeping the contents of the ship, and selling the captured sailors into slavery. It was a very lucrative pirating business. The U.S. wanted Tripoli to stop it, of course. The ruler of Tripoli said, “Sure, we’ll stop attacking your ships if you pay us tribute every year.”

So for awhile the U.S. paid the tribute because they were a new country and had no navy to speak of, and they wanted to continue with their overseas trade. But the ruler of Tripoli decided the tribute they had agreed to wasn’t enough, so he demanded more and when he didn’t get it, he started seizing U.S. ships again.

Meanwhile, the U.S. was frantically building a navy, and by this time had enough warships to put up a fight, so they did. Suddenly Tripoli’s ruler wanted to talk peace. But in the negotiations, the man negotiating on behalf of the ruler asked for a gift of money. The U.S. said no, absolutely not. The U.S. said basically, “You have not been fair in any way and have only acted as our enemy, and no, we will not pay you to stop the fighting.”

Then Tripoli’s negotiator tried to appeal to pity: “But Tripoli is very poor,” he pleaded. “she cannot subsist without the generosity of her friends; give something then on the score of charity.” In this case, Tripoli had already established a poor reputation with the Americans, so the pity plea did not work. But even after the U.S. negotiator said no, Tripoli’s negotiator tried to make the U.S. negotiator feel guilty for not feeling pity. He asked, basically, “You say you want peace but you won’t give this gift of charity to obtain the peace?”

Islam uses the pity plea anywhere it can. Mohammad used it, Muslims in Tripoli were using it, and Muslims today are still at it. In their dealings with powerful non-Muslims, the basic stance of Islam is: “We are an oppressed, persecuted people. We’re a minority. We’re under siege. We are wrongly accused. We’re the victims of bigotry, hatred, and Islamophobia.” And if they can’t find anything to point to that proves their oppression, they literally create something.

It’s like a game they are playing, except this is a game with very serious consequences. A single sociopath using the appeal to pity can completely ruin the lives of many people. And this is, of course, nothing compared with what Islamic supremacists have done. They’ve killed over 270 million people since they started. They’ve ruined even more lives, and they are affecting the lives and livelihoods of billions of us today.

I would like to spend my time working on productive, positive, life-affirming activities. Instead, I am spending many hours of my short time here on earth trying to stop the insidious Islamic encroachment, reading and writing about things I wish didn’t exist. It’s an upsetting topic. It’s disturbing. But the consequences of ignoring it are even worse, so I devote a large portion of my life to it.

And, of course, I’m not alone. Every one of us has been influenced in hundreds of ways we don’t even know about by the third jihad (and the first two jihads).

It’s important to understand how they do it. One of the most successful techniques they use is the appeal to pity. The good news is that as soon as someone sees the appeal for what it is, the game is over, the magic disappears, the trance is lifted.

When you find a good example of how Islamic supremacists use the appeal to pity, please give us the example in the comments on this article. Let’s help each other see through the con game, and with our open eyes, let us completely defeat the third jihad.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. Thanks for the warm welcome. Thanks for coming out to greet me — at kind of a strange hour. (Laughter.) General, I appreciate your accommodating what I’m calling Rudolph One. (Laughter.) After all, it is the holiday season. You might have heard, we made a little refueling stop in Baghdad earlier today. And now I’m proud to be back in Afghanistan. (Applause.) You might call it an early-morning wake-up call. Or in some of your cases, I might have cut your evening off. We won’t go there. (Laughter.)

In either case, I am proud to be with brave souls serving the United States of America. (Applause.)

And my dear wife sends her very best regards. (Applause.) So, on behalf of Laura, and everybody else back home, merry Christmas, and a happy holidays. (Applause.) Congratulations on your tremendous accomplishments. And above all, thank you for volunteering to defend the United States of America.

You know, they often say, what are you going to miss? I’ll miss the airplane, of course. (Laughter.) But I’m mainly going to miss being the Commander-in-Chief of such an outstanding group of men and women. Continue reading →

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you for coming out to say hello. General, thank you for the introduction, I am honored to be at Camp Victory.

AUDIENCE: Hoo-ah!

THE PRESIDENT: Laura and I have been having a lot of Christmas parties at the White House, so I thought it would be kind of neat to change the scenery.

AUDIENCE: Hoo-ah!

THE PRESIDENT: And I would rather be with the men and women of the United States military than with anybody else. (Applause.)

So as you can see I decided to fly over, and in the spirit of the season we renamed Air Force One to Rudolph One.

AUDIENCE: Hoo-ah

THE PRESIDENT: Thanks for coming. I bring greetings from a proud and grateful nation — Merry Christmas to you, happy holidays. Congratulations on your inspiring accomplishments here in Iraq. And above all, thank you for volunteering to defend our country in a time of danger.

AUDIENCE: Hoo-ah!

THE PRESIDENT: This is a time of year to give thanks for our many blessings B- and the greatest blessing we have is freedom and the fact that we’ve got a United States military to defend that freedom.

So General, thank you very much for your leadership. I’m proud to be with you again. I appreciate the leadership of General Austin, as well. Ambassador Crocker and Christine are with us today. I had the pleasure of meeting Sergeant — Command Sergeant Major Lawrence Wilson; Command Sergeant Major Joe Allen; Major General Hammond — (applause) — put it together for Hammond. (Laughter.)

AUDIENCE: Hoo-ah!

THE PRESIDENT: Command Sergeant Major Gioia.

AUDIENCE: Hoo-ah!

THE PRESIDENT: Major General Oates. (Applause.) How about, have you ever heard of a guy named Redmore? (Applause.)

Thanks for coming out. I am thrilled to be here with the diplomats, embassy personnel who are so critical to our success.

I want to thank the Iraqi citizens who are here with us today. I appreciate your courage. I know there are members of the coalition who are here with us. There have been a lot of troops from around the world who have come to help this young democracy survive and thrive. And so I want to thank the citizens of those country [sic] and the troops who have served here before us.

This is my fourth trip to Iraq — and you’ve probably heard I’m heading into retirement — (laughter) — so it’s going to be my last trip as the President. But thanks to you, the Iraq we stand in tonight is dramatically freer, dramatically safer, and dramatically better than the Iraq we found eight years ago.

AUDIENCE: Hoo-ah!

THE PRESIDENT: And as a result of the sacrifices of our troops, America is safer, and America is more secure.

AUDIENCE: Hoo-ah!

THE PRESIDENT: I want to take you back to what life was like eight years ago here in Iraq. Iraq had a record of supporting terror, a record of developing and using weapons of mass destruction, was routinely firing at American military personnel, systematically violating United Nations resolution. Life for the Iraqi people was a nightmare, with Saddam Hussein torturing and murdering anyone who did not support his repressive rule. Iraq was a sworn enemy of the United States at the heart of the Middle East; the region was a serious threat to the us.

After the attacks of September the 11th, 2001, America concluded we could not tolerate a regime like this in a pivotal region of the world. I gave Saddam Hussein a chance to peacefully resolve the question as to whether or not he had weapons of mass destruction. You might remember, I went to the United Nations, where a body said: disarm, disclose, or face serious consequence. It was his choice to make. And he made the wrong choice. And so the United States military, with a vast coalition removed this man from power and the world is better off for it. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!

THE PRESIDENT: I doubt in his worst nightmares he ever would have dreamt that we’d be standing in one of his palaces.

AUDIENCE: Hoo-ah!

THE PRESIDENT: Thanks to you, 25 million Iraqis are free.

Thanks to you, Iraq is no longer sponsoring terror — it is fighting terror. It’s making American people safer as a result.

The enemies of freedom in Iraq are determined, and this fight has been tough. Two years ago, the situation had grown dire — the political process was frozen and sectarian violence was spiraling out of control. Some of you were here then/

Many said the mission was hopeless; many called for retreat. Retreat would have meant failure — and failure is never an option.

AUDIENCE: Hoo-ah!

THE PRESIDENT: So instead of pulling troops out, we sent more troops in — called the surge. And because of you and because of your courage, the surge is one of the greatest successes in the history of the United States military.

AUDIENCE: Hoo-ah!

THE PRESIDENT: Terrorists who once held safe havens across the country are being driven out of their strongholds. The political process that was once stalled is moving forward. Iraqi citizens once afraid to leave their homes are going back to school, and shopping in markets, and leading a more normal life. And American troops are returning home because of success.

AUDIENCE: Hoo-ah!

THE PRESIDENT: The dramatic turnaround you led in Iraq culminated in the two agreements completed last month, which the Prime Minister and I affirmed in a ceremony earlier today.

These agreements formalize the ties between our two democracies in areas ranging from security and diplomacy to culture and trade. These agreements show the way forward toward a historic day — when American forces withdraw from a democratic and successful Iraq, and the war in this land is won.

There’s more hard work to do before we reach that day. But if there is any — but if there is no doubt — but there is no doubt in my mind, there’s just no doubt that we’re going to reach that day. I am confident because our cause is just. And freedom is universal. I’m confident because the Iraqi people are showing unshakable determination and courage.

And above all, I am confident because I know the character and the strength of those who wear the uniform of the United States military.

AUDIENCE: Hoo-ah!

THE PRESIDENT: Over the past five years, you have shown the world some unmistakable truths:

You have shown that when America is tested, we rise to meet the test.

You have shown that the desire for freedom is more powerful than the intimidation of terrorists.

You have shown that there is no task too difficult for the United States military.

AUDIENCE: Hoo-ah!

THE PRESIDENT: And so I have a message for you and all who serve our country: I want to thank you for making the noble choice to serve and to protect your fellow Americans. Sometimes it can be hard to tell when history is being made, particularly if you’re in the middle of the action. What you’re doing in Iraq is as important, and courageous, and selfless as what American troops did in places like Normandy and Iwo Jima and Korea. Your generation is every bit as great as any that came before it. And the work you do every day will shape history for generations to come.

I guess what I’m telling you is your grandchildren some day are going to say, “Thank God you showed up and served.”

America now has a strong friend and a partner in the fight against extremism in the heart of the Middle East, and that is historic.

People across this troubled region of the world now have an example for a more hopeful path — a model of liberty that can prevail over tyranny and terror. Killers who wanted to take the lives of Americans back home have been brought to justice before they reached our shores.

Because of you all who work to protect this nation — and all who work to protect the nation, America has done something many said was impossible: We have gone seven years without a terrorist attack. AUDIENCE: Hoo-ah!

THE PRESIDENT: We think of those who have laid down their lives for freedom here in Iraq. Their children are growing up without a mom or a dad. But all of our children are growing up with something else — the promise of a safer America and a better world. And that is the lasting memorial of all who have sacrificed here in Iraq. And thanks to you, that memorial will be achieved — and their sacrifice will not be in vain.

AUDIENCE: Hoo-ah!

THE PRESIDENT: We think of your comrades who have been wounded. And this nation pledges that we will give them all the care and all the support they need to recover.

AUDIENCE: Hoo-ah!

THE PRESIDENT: We think of all your families back home. I know many of you have a sweetheart who misses you, or a daughter who longs for her dad, or a mom who worries about you day and night. For many of you, it won’t be your first holiday away — and that certainly doesn’t make it easier. So I’m going to give you an order: When you get out of here, call home or email home; you tell your families you love them; and you tell the Commander-in-Chief came by to thank them for their sacrifice along with yours. (Applause.)

Thanks — thanks for coming by to let me say hello. Thanks for serving the United States of America. They ask me what I’m going to miss as the President. I’ll tell you what I’m going to miss: being the Commander-in-Chief of such a fabulous group of folks. May God bless you, and God bless America. (Applause.)

There are lines that can be crossed. There are times when someone can go too far in their comments, even when they are trying to be funny. I understand satire and I love it….most of the time. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am not one that is easily offended. In fact you can say whatever you want about me or to me; I really don’t care. What I will not stand for is you saying anything mean or hateful about someone that I care for or love that will hurt them or disrespect them. Like I said, about me…BRING IT! About someone I care about, don’t even go there.

I love my family and I love and care for my dearest friends. I care for soldiers, and when I say soldiers I use that as a general term referring to all service-members in any branch. I am a 1SG, which means looking after and caring for soldiers is my main priority in my military life.

I have had several of my own soldiers (that reported to me) wounded in combat and I was there in the hospital visiting with them and trying to lift their spirits (even kidnapping one out of the hospital and taking him to a gentleman’s club). I have seen my soldiers suffer, and I have seen the families of my soldiers worry and cry over their loved ones.

Last year I was privileged enough to visit Walker Reed Medical Center and The Fisher House while on The Sandbox book tour in Washington DC. Garry Trudeau, David Stanford, Owen Powell, his wife and I were lucky enough to meet some true warriors (who were mostly in wheel chairs and missing limbs), talk with them and have dinner with them and their families. These young men were very awe-inspiring to see them suffer the one wound that most soldiers fear more than anything else (losing a limb and being mangled for life, and still keeping a positive outlook on life. We also had the opportunity to tour the new Amputee center and see all of the ways that Walter Reed doctors and nurses are helping our wounded rehabilitate. In fact the still picture below in the video is in that Center and I have been in that exact room.

I walked away from the hospital grounds that night very humbled and damn proud to be a soldier.

I wrote all of that so you know where I am coming from, and so you would know why I am so pissed at The Onion. I like The Onion normally and I try to grab a copy whenever I can for me to read and for my son becuase he loves it. I can laugh at a lot of stuff, but there are limits.

Now if you are as upset as I am after watching that video, you may be asking yourself “What can I do about this Bouhammer?” Well Bouhammer has the answer for you. Why not email the participating entities and let them know how disturbed you are with the disrespect and disgraceful way that they represented out wounded warriors.

Also, Both Fosters and Burger King (yes the same Burger King that has restaurants on almost every military base in the US and most of the large bases overseas to include Iraq and Afghanistan) are advertisers, so they may also want to hear your feelings on this video.

I hope you join me and the rest of the Pitchfork Brigade who has voiced their opinion on this matter HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE to name a few.

All of the teams made valiant efforts, but none could match the raw talent of RCT-1, Team 2.

As a late entry in the tournament, Marines with RCT-1, Team 2 played in the last game of the first day of the competition, winning in the final minutes 20-12 over the Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 125th Infantry Regiment.

RCT-1, Team 2’s next two games were not nearly as close. The team won each game convincingly by scores of 44-12 against 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion and 53-18 against Combat Logistics Battalion 5.

In the championship on Thanksgiving Day, they faced off against Soldiers with the Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 158th Field Artillery Regiment.

158th won the coin toss, opted to receive the ball first and quickly marched down field to score on their first drive.

RCT-1, Team 2 turned the ball over on downs during their first offensive possession, but their reorganized defense forced Army to punt and the Marines’ offense was able to capitalize on the ensuing drive with a 50-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Bryan Hughes to receiver Jerry Murphy.

Going into halftime RCT-1, Team 2 led 18-12. The six-point difference marked the smallest lead margin the Marines held at the half since their first game in the tournament. In the second half that all changed.

Hughes opened up the second half with a series of precision passes to receivers Rodney Lane, Tracy Johnson, and Cedric Foster, and then a touchdown strike to receiver Jeremy Franklin.

The high-powered RCT-1, Team 2 offense scored 20 unanswered points thanks in part to their tenacious defense, led by linebacker Philip Benzie and safety Stephen Geib. Benzie led the team with 18 tackles through the tournament, and Geib led the team with four interceptions.

The 38-18 victory won the team a championship trophy and bragging rights aboard the camp.

“We had a great team who worked well together and just went out there and played football,” said RCT-1, Team 2 coach Brad Owen. “I had a large selection of athletes to choose from and we had an outstanding team from top to bottom.”

Col. Ronald Kapral, the commanding officer of 81st HBCT, said after the game that while most Americans were just waking-up to celebrate Thanksgiving, the Camp Ramadi Turkey Bowl was possibly the first Thanksgiving football game of the year.

Kapral also thanked everyone involved for their participation and congratulated the Marines on their win as he presented them with the trophy.

By Andrew Cochran

The transcript of our panel on the Mumbai attacks, held December 4 in Washington, is available here as an Acrobat document. The panel consisted of Contributing Experts Dr. Walid Phares and Farhana Ali, and Dr. David Kilcullen, and I served as the moderator. Some highlights from each panelist are below. I also want to invite your attention to the archive of posts here on the activities of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in the U.S., some of which were discussed by the panel. Contact me if you have questions for the panelists or comments. I especially want to thank Assistant Newslink Editor Brett Wallace for his usual stellar job in compiling the transcript.

Walid Phares: “(W)hat we are dealing with here is a decision made at the level of regional jihadists. It has the flavor, has the mark of the whole operation chronologically speaking, it comes at the heal of previous incidents on one hand but if you project the operation it may lead you on the other hand to the logic that a decision had been made on a much higher level. It is probably all the way up to a war room between Al Qaeda and the Taliban, with the LeT being “subcontracted” for the operation and information supply by infiltration within the Pakistani security apparatus. If you look at the scheme, the structure, you will see the interests of the Taliban, Al Qaeda, the execution by LeT and security provided by an intelligence apparatus in Pakistan.”

Farhana Ali: “A few days after the attacks, I received an email from a source in Pakistan who meets with… the leader of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the political wing for LeT, and who has family that are hard-core loyalists to Laskhar. He sent me an email on November 30th in which he wrote, ‘According to two senior sources within jihadi outfits and as many in the intelligence agencies, the recent terror attacks in different parts of Mumbai…were masterminded by Pakistani intelligence agency ISI… The Lashkar leaders are not accepting the responsibility at official level but they are taking pride is claiming it among their trusted people.’… I think it is very clear that if you look at the LeT’s strategy it is to weaken India and to help establish the caliphate which is part of their ideological program… My sources say at least 23 (attackers).”

David Kilcullen: “This was not some Islamic charity or some group working alone from the Deccan Mujahedeen: this has all the hallmarks of a Special Forces raid, closer to a commando or SBS raiding activity than a traditional Al Qaeda style terrorist attack. Al Qaeda has never attacked a land target from the sea, though they have attacked maritime targets from the sea, such as the Cole, the Limburg and attacks on Saudi oil installations. There has never been anything close to this level of sophistication of a seaborne attack: this was a high professional bar. We can deduce they had some professional help though I think it is much too early to state who that support came from. It has been set up to look like a Pakistani government operation. We should be careful until we know more. As a side bar, European CT forces captured an Al Qaeda CD that highlighted Al Qaeda urban warfare tactics, and these matched those used in Mumbai to the letter. The sea part was new but the land parts followed Al Qaeda tactics pretty closely.”

Andrew Cochran: “One story that caught my eye was a story about SIM cards and cell phones, because there have been increasing concern about terrorists using stored value cards and SIM cards in cell phones… SOCOM (NOTE: The Pentagon’s Special Operations Command) has met with a number of representatives of financial institutions, telecom companies and builders of those systems to learn more about mobile banking techniques… So the Mumbai attack presents the possibility – we won’t know until the investigation is completed – that this was the first large-scale terrorist attack involving stored value card and mobile banking technologies…

ISLAM IS ON the march. Today that march is known as the “third jihad.” The term refers to the murder of non-Muslims around the world (for the crime of being non-Muslims), but it refers to much more than that. There are many ways to wage jihad, and nearly every Muslim can play a part.

Jihad means “struggle,” but a particular kind of struggle. Jihad means to struggle to make Islam dominate all other religions and governments. This is one of the religious duties of all devout Muslims, and according to Mohammad, it is the most important obligation a Muslim must fulfill.

The first jihad started with Mohammad. His armies conquered all of Arabia. In the hundred years after his death, his armies conquered most of the Middle East, North Africa and Spain. The first jihad lasted from 622 AD until 750 AD. Read more about that here.

The second major jihad started in 1071 AD. Islamic armies toppled Constantinople and spread into Europe, India, and further into Africa. The second jihad began to decline when the Muslim army was stopped on September 11th, 1683 at the gates of Vienna, Austria. Read more about the second jihad here.

The Islamic push to dominate — all other cultures, all other religions, and all other governments — has never stopped. But we are referring to large waves of success for the Islamic expansion; periods where vast new territories were brought under the control of Shari’a law.

Now we are in the third jihad, the third great wave.

Non-Muslims in the past have fought back, of course (otherwise the whole world would already be ruled by Islam). Some successfully resisted subjugation.

But many countries and cultures took too long to recognize the threat or organized their resistance too slowly, and they were swallowed up by Islam’s relentless aggression.

Today, Islamic supremacists are waging jihad in subtler and more clever ways (waging jihad by gaining concessions, for example), in addition to simple violent aggression, but non-Muslims around the world are beginning to notice the pattern and are rousing themselves to defend their cultures, their religions, their governments, and their lives.

I hope you join us in defeating the third jihad. We need you to help others recognize the threat. We need your participation in organizing an effective resistance. And we need to move quickly. Here’s how to get started.

Quotes

"Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR."
~ Vietnam Pilot

"In combat, honor is obtained by those who do what must be done, not what is allowed by those who refuse to fight or die for their own cause...my extremes pump fear into the enemy for generations come, your extremes cause warriors to bow in the presence of the unworthy, presenting weakness and opportunity ... well, I bow to no man"
~ Antonio Cezar Vega